5 Tips for Making Household Items Last Longer

Buying a home is expensive enough. Filling it up with things you need adds to the cost, and spending more money to replace those things leads to more bills.

Extending the lifespan of household items can save you a lot of money in the long run. Here are five tips for making some common household items last longer:

Flip your mattress.
Most mattresses have a lifespan of seven to 10 years. If you don’t flip or rotate your mattress regularly you may have to replace it sooner.

Ask the manufacturer or business that sold you a mattress how often if recommends rotating or flipping a mattress so that it doesn’t sag from body impressions in one area. A pillow top mattress will have to be rotated. Or rotate your mattress as often as you like, such as every month.

Remove batteries.
If you’re not using something for a long time that requires batteries, take the batteries out until you need it again.

Chances are that at some time you’ve tried to use some battery-powered device, only to discover that it’s not working because the batteries are dead. Or worse — that the batteries have corroded and made the device unusable.

Use the right amount of laundry detergent.
Many new model clothes washers require much less laundry detergent than you might think. After all, if your clothes are dirty, a little extra detergent should make them cleaner, right? Not exactly.

Too much soap can make a washer work harder on the rinse and spin cycles to get all of that soap out, leading to a broken washer. Try using less soap and see if your clothes come out just as clean.

Maintain your appliances.
Regular maintenance is necessary for more than just your car. Clean the refrigerator coils and vacuum around the air vents so that it keeps running smoothly and don’t have to use extra energy to run.

Change your furnace cleaners regularly, have your air conditioner and heater serviced each year, clean the gutters annually, and even do simple things such as cleaning the coffee maker to extend the life of your home and its components.

Clean the clothes dryer.
If the wet clothes in your clothes dryer take longer than normal to dry, there’s something wrong with the dryer.

Regularly clean the lint trap, and exhaust hose and check the exterior vent for blockages. If air isn’t moving through the dryer and out of the house, it makes it harder to dry the clothes inside it. That can lead to more time running the dryer and working harder, which can lead to more breakdowns.